Triple
Constraints of Project Management
Research
According to Kathy
Schwalbe, Information technology project management (6th edition),
every project can categories according to its scope, time and cost. These
sections we referred to triple constraints of project management. For
successful project, project manager must care about above constraints.
- · Scope – what work will be done in the project?
- · Time – how long should it take?
- · Cost – what is the project budget?
Above figure shows the connection
of triple constraints. Combination of these 3 it will be made a quality
project. Project manager has to define
the project scope before he starts the project. Scope includes all the goals
and objectives in the project. He should show a similar project for study and
create reports with rough values and a presentation. The important thing is
project manager must know how to balance constraints in a 3D table. Sometimes project team has to change goals or
objectives for success project. So sometimes it will increase or decrease the
budget. At that time project manager has to know how to manage these three. For
example, some projects scope need to get increase because of customer needs.
But on other side he needs to concentrate about time and budget. He cannot
delay or over budget the project. If he needs to do that he must increase all three
simultaneously. Then project quality will high automatically.
(Kathy Schwalbe, 2010)
According to PMBOK 4th
edition, shows project constraints. It did not mention triple constraints
straight away.
- · Scope
- · Quality
- · Schedule (time)
- · Budget
- · Resources
- · Risk
If any constraint changes
suddenly project will be unbalanced. As example, sometimes we need to decrease
the time because of customer. But we cannot decrease the quality of the
project. It is risky for any project. So project manager has to manage risks
also. It can be positive or negative but he has to take a risk to balance project
constraints.
Analysis
As human tasks,
project needs to be performed and delivered under certain constraints. These
constraints referred to “project management triangle” which as triple
constraints in triangle sides. All three
sides should be in together. Only one cannot change individually. Quality depends
with these three constraints. Straight away we cannot say this method is good
or bad. There are several ways of defining constraints. Some resources show
this constraints following way.
·
Scope for quality
·
Time for schedule
·
Cost for resources
TAP university website expands it
to six like PMBOK. Under resources include human and other all resources.
Conclusion
Kathy Schwalbe shows
the easy way of understanding triple constraints. Inside time project manager
has to allocate resources. Without human resources no one can accomplish goals
and objectives of the project. In PMBOK 4th edition has taken
resources as a main constraint but Kathy Schwalbe has shown it other way. She has
defined only three.
As an example, the
chronicles report 2003 showed some major improvement which is based on analysis
of 13,522 IT projects. All constraints (triple) estimates had increase from 16%
to 34%. Project failure has decreased 31% to 15% and time overruns increased up
to 82% of the project. Cost overruns for approximately half of projects decreased from over 180% to 43%. From above
points we can say project management helps to improve project quality. It is
the easy way to do a project. Everyone knows their tasks. Then they can work
according to plan which is created by project manager.
Reference
- · http://www.mendeley.com/research/chaos-chronicles-v30/ [Accessed on 26th of March 2012]
- · Pmstudent, 2012. What Is A Project? [Online] Available at: http://pmstudent.com/what-is-a-project/ [Accessed on 19 March 2012]
- · PMBOK Guide, 2008. A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge, Fourth Edition.
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